From the Underworld to the Corridors of Power: India's Gangster-Politicians
India's democracy has long grappled with one of its most corrosive paradoxes: the steady migration of criminals from the underworld into elected office. What was once a covert, behind-the-scenes arrangement — where gangsters financed campaigns in exchange for political protection — has evolved, shockingly, into direct participation. Dons have become legislators. Gangsters have sat in Parliament. And the trend, rather than receding, has grown alarmingly worse over the decades.
In the world's largest democracy, where governance should be rooted in integrity and public service, a disturbing reality looms large — criminals are steadily occupying the corridors of power. Recent revelations by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) expose a grim scenario: a growing number of elected representatives in India bear criminal records, some accused of the most heinous crimes.
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The Historical Roots : How It All Began
The relationship between India's underworld and its political establishment was not born overnight. It all started with petty crimes involving gambling, illicit distillation, and prostitution in bigger cities and smuggling of imported goods in port cities. The crimes then gradually turned towards drug trafficking and narcotics along with income from real estate through extortion. Money power was then used to make connections with politicians and bureaucrats, which in turn moved on to muscle power used by politicians during elections.
Mumbai's underworld was particularly intertwined with political power from the 1960s onward. From street-side, city-centric affairs, the dons became international wheeler-dealers, for whom networking is as important as a firearm. With focus on business partnership deals and manipulation of laws through politicians, they shed their reliance on muscle power.
The political utility of criminals was mutual and explicit. Political leaders became the leaders of gangs, connected to private illegal militias and corrupt police. Over the years, criminals had been elected to local bodies, State Assemblies, and Parliament.
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The Vohra Committee: India's Wake-Up Call (1993)
The single most important official acknowledgment of the underworld-politics nexus came with the landmark Vohra Committee Report of 1993. After the devastating Bombay bomb blasts in 1993, the Vohra Committee was established to unmask the sinister linkages and nexus between politicians, police, bureaucrats, and criminals. The Committee consisted of high-ranked officials including the Home Secretary, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, the Director of the CBI, and other experts.
The investigations into the Bombay bomb blast cases revealed extensive linkages of the underworld in the various governmental agencies, political circles, business sector, and the film world. The Director of the Intelligence Bureau stated that the network of the Mafia was virtually running a parallel government, pushing the State apparatus into irrelevance.
The NN Vohra Committee report stated that the cost of contesting elections made politicians depend on the underworld network. The report also stated that the 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai and subsequent communal violence showed that the underworld exploited Pakistan's ISI network in India to stoke communal tension.
Chillingly, it is believed that the report has more than 100 pages including annexures and other documents submitted by intelligence agencies; however, only 11 pages of the report were made public and the rest remained confidential. Many prominent personalities filed cases in the Supreme Court to make the complete document available in the public domain, but the same was refused by the court, stating that disclosure of the supporting material would be detrimentally injurious to the public.
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Notable Cases : Gangsters Who Entered Politics
Arun Gawli — "Daddy" of Dagdi Chawl
Perhaps the most iconic example of a don turned politician in India is Arun Gawli. Gawli rose to prominence from Dagdi Chawl in Byculla and went on to establish the Akhil Bharatiya Sena. He served as an MLA from Chinchpokli in Mumbai between 2004 and 2009. His life sentence was handed down by a Mumbai sessions court in August 2012 for the killing of Mumbai Shiv Sena corporator Kamlakar Jamsandekar.
Gawli built his own gang and became known for extortion, contract killings, and protection rackets across Mumbai. Unlike many gangsters who operated from abroad, Gawli remained rooted in his stronghold at Dagdi Chawl, which became both his base of operations and a symbol of his power.
In a dramatic turn, Gawli entered politics in the late 1990s, projecting himself as a 'local saviour' of Marathi-speaking communities. He founded the Akhil Bharatiya Sena and was elected as an MLA from Chinchpokli in 2004. His political image, however, couldn't fully distance him from his criminal past.
His brazen appeal to political life was immortalised in a famous quote: "Ab kis ka dam hai ki mujhe encounter me maare. Now no politician can give supari to any police officer or gangster to kill me. Ab mere paas bullet proof jacket hai — and MLA tag." In September 2025, after spending over 17 years behind bars, he walked out of Nagpur Central Jail on Supreme Court bail.
Atiq Ahmed — From Street Crime to Parliament
Atiq Ahmed, the notorious gangster, five-time MLA, and once an MP from Uttar Pradesh, was killed on live TV along with his brother Ashraf by a gang of three assassins.
Ahmed first made an impression in the crime alleys of Prayagraj when he was accused of murder at the age of 17 in 1979. In 1983, the first FIR was registered against him. He first contested the assembly elections from the Allahabad West seat in 1989 and emerged victorious. He went on to win the MLA election five consecutive times, switching parties twice in between. Having tasted power as an MLA, Ahmed contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 on a Samajwadi Party ticket.
Ahmed had more than 160 criminal cases registered against him. After becoming a Member of Parliament, his opponent Raju Pal — who defeated his brother in a by-election — was shot dead. Ahmed was named as the main accused in this case but later received bail. He was able to hold his power in the underworld even from inside prison.
Mukhtar Ansari — The Mau Don
Mukhtar Ansari was one of the most feared gangster-politicians of eastern Uttar Pradesh. In 1996, Mukhtar was elected from Mau, and the gang, with its arsenal of AK-47s and other weapons, became a household name in the districts of Bhadohi, Mau, Ghazipur, Varanasi, and Jaunpur. The gangs made a living by garnering government contracts with political help.
Mukhtar Ansari's criminal empire connected with mafias in Mumbai, including Dawood Ibrahim's group and Arun Gawli's group, and began receiving the kind of weapons that the police in the heartland were never used to — AK-47s. In straightforward gangland warfare, the first time AK-47s came to be used in this part of Uttar Pradesh, the name of Mukhtar Ansari featured.
Mukhtar Ansari died in judicial custody in March 2024, while serving multiple prison sentences, marking the end of one of UP's most durable criminal-political dynasties.
Raja Bhaiya (Raghuraj Pratap Singh) — King of Kunda
Raghuraj Pratap Singh, or Raja Bhaiya — the infamous "king of Kunda" — was an oppressive feudal lord or bahubali with several criminal cases against him, from murder to kidnapping. People bowed with hands folded before him exactly as one would only see before in cinema.
A seven-times MLA and five-term minister, Raja Bhaiya had more than 50 cases of murder and many cases of extortion lodged against him, but was eventually cleared in most through a combination of political protection, witness intimidation, and legal maneuvering.
D.P. Yadav — The Sambhal Don
D.P. Yadav, often referred to as a "mafia don" and bahubali, was an MLA four times — three times from Bulandshahar and once from Sahaswan — and also an MP twice, representing Sambhal in both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. He is the father of Vikas Yadav, the convicted murderer of Nitish Katara. His wife, Umlesh Yadav, was an MLA from Bisauli.
Hari Shankar Tiwari — Gorakhpur's Iron Don
Hari Shankar Tiwari was an MLA for all of 23 years. He has the BJP, SP, and BSP all on his resume, and has been a minister in regimes helmed by all three parties. That is the case with most mafia dons — they have been associated with almost every party that has been in power.
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The Geography of the Nexus : Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
While the phenomenon spans all of India, certain states have been particularly notorious. Both in Bihar and UP, those who rose from the crime world to the corridors of power were even made ministers by governments, despite serious allegations. From Atiq Ahmed, his brother Ashraf, Raju Pal, and the Ansari brothers, to Kunda's Raja Bhaiya who burned houses, and MLA Vijay Mishra who spent more time in jail than in his constituency — all won elections regardless of party affiliation.
The dons of Uttar Pradesh have been mostly Thakurs, along with some Brahmins (Vikas Dubey and Hari Shankar Tiwari of Gorakhpur) and a few Muslims (Mukhtar Ansari of Mau-Ghazipur). Over the years, the easiest place to meet an entire posse of dons was the Indian Parliament — several had become MPs. Almost every seat in Uttar Pradesh would have one or several history-sheeters in election contests, both at the assembly and national level.
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Why Does It Keep Happening ? The Structural Causes
Electoral Incentive
ADR data from 2024 indicates that the success rate for candidates with criminal charges was 15.3%, while candidates without any criminal cases had a much lower success rate of just 4.4%. This extraordinary win-rate gap makes criminals electorally attractive to parties.
Money and Muscle
Parties field candidates with criminal backgrounds because they have financial resources and local organisational networks. The problem is party candidate selection, not primarily voter irrationality — parties choose tainted candidates because they are electorally effective. Voters vote for the candidates parties present; blaming voters for "supporting criminals" misattributes the agency — parties are the primary gatekeepers.
Political Protection as Incentive
Our system has unwittingly created huge incentives for criminals to enter politics. Mafia dons have been elected from prisons, some continue to hold durbars in jail with all home comforts, instruct associates by cellphone, and rule their empire issuing diktats that few dare disobey. The rise of money and muscle enabled bahubalis to secure legitimacy by aligning with parties, invoking cross-cutting identities, and activating caste networks in the state administration.
Slow Justice System
The poor conviction rate for MPs and MLAs, coupled with trial delays, does not deter political parties from giving tickets to candidates with a criminal background. Witnesses frequently turn hostile. Cases drag on for decades. And in many instances, the very person accused controls the machinery meant to prosecute them.
No Party Is Clean
Criminalization cuts across parties. The 2024 Lok Sabha data shows: 39% of BJP winners, 49% of Congress winners, 45% of SP winners, 45% of TMC winners, 59% of DMK winners, and 50% of TDP winners declared criminal cases — no party has clean hands on this metric.
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The Data : A Worsening Crisis
The numbers paint a stark picture of democratic decay :
Empirical analyses of election affidavits demonstrate the scale of criminal infiltration — approximately 24% of 2004 Lok Sabha MPs had criminal cases, escalating to 30% in 2009, 30% in 2014, 43% in 2019, and a record 46% (251 of 543) in 2024, with 27 convicted. Serious charges, including murder, kidnapping, and crimes against women, affected about 30% of MPs and MLAs as of 2024–2025.
ADR's 2025 report noted 45% of 4,092 MLAs and 47% of ministers facing cases, with states like Andhra Pradesh (79% of MLAs with criminal cases) and Bihar topping the lists for serious offenses.
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Judicial and Legislative Attempts at Reform
The Supreme Court and Parliament have not been entirely passive :
- The 2002 Supreme Court ruling in Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India mandated that all candidates disclose criminal cases, assets, and liabilities in their election affidavits.
- The 2013 Lily Thomas judgment enforced immediate disqualification of legislators convicted and sentenced to two or more years in prison.
- The Supreme Court ordered mandatory party disclosure of candidates' criminal records in 2020 but stopped short of barring candidates.
- In a 2025 hearing, the Supreme Court, responding to a PIL, raised concerns about allowing convicted individuals to return to Parliament after serving their sentences and sought responses from the Centre and the Election Commission regarding a possible lifetime ban.
Yet despite the Vohra Committee's 1993 documentation of deep-rooted criminal-political nexuses involving patronage, protection, and shared profits, subsequent data reveals their enduring presence across India. The Vohra Committee's recommendation for establishing a nodal agency under the Ministry of Home Affairs to aggregate intelligence on mafia syndicates was not implemented as a statutory entity with independent powers.
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The Consequences for Society
The consequences of this creeping criminalization are severe :
When people with criminal backgrounds hold power, it sends a message that lawbreaking is acceptable, potentially leading to a decline in societal ethics and respect for the law. There is a high chance of erosion of trust in the democratic process — citizens will be less likely to vote or participate in civic life if they believe the system is corrupt and unresponsive. Criminalization can disproportionately affect marginalized communities, limiting their representation and hindering progress on issues relevant to them.
Research from Northeastern University found that the more serious charges a politician faces, like murder or kidnapping, the more crime increases in the areas they represent — a direct feedback loop between criminal governance and social disorder.
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Conclusion
The story of persons entering Indian politics from the underworld is not merely a catalogue of colourful villains — it is a structural indictment of a democratic system that, in its current form, rewards criminality. It is a travesty that many law-breakers manage to get party tickets and win elections with voters' mandate and then become our lawmakers, signaling a wrong message to society at large.
The criminalisation of Indian politics is documented, systematic, and — by the data — worsening over time. Breaking this cycle will require not incremental disclosure rules, but genuine political will: pre-charge disqualification, fast-track courts that actually deliver verdicts, clean campaign finance, and parties that resist nominating "winnable" criminals over citizens of integrity.
Until then, India's underworld and its Parliament will remain, to a disturbing degree, the same address.
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